


White Noise

by Phtho_nos



Series: Are you listening? [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guilt, Hurt, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Physical Abuse, Sojiro is bEST DAD OKEY???, These are just warnings there’s nothing descriptive only as far as saying that he has bruises, can uhhh Kamoshida just uhhhh DIE???, look at my boyyyyyssss, only hurt no comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 18:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19362436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phtho_nos/pseuds/Phtho_nos
Summary: Sojiro doesn’t quite know what to think of the kid he’s taken in.He’s a criminal though, so it’s fine to not look further than that, right?





	White Noise

It was quiet, like most days around the cafe, as Sojiro half listened to the white noise of the television. 

The two chatty customers discussed between each other in loud voices regarding the news that played on the screen, and he hoped that they would at least ask another cuppa or leave if they were intent on doing just that.

A boy opened the door to the cafe, quite tall for his age, looking to be a high school student. 

Fluffy black hair curled haphazardly in awkward directions on his head, and his glasses (fake, perhaps?) shielded steel grey eyes, innocent and anxious. 

When the two customers went their way, he invited the boy into the cafe attic, which would be his temporary home for the long year he was on probation. 

It was dusty and cluttered, unfit for anything to be living in, but Sojiro justified this with the fact that he was housing someone who had assaulted a woman. 

The boy seemed grateful, nonetheless, of the somewhat breathable space he’d been given to take shelter in, and seemed almost, was that... happy?, that he had a bed and blankets. 

Sojiro didn’t know when they’d last been washed, but didn’t inform the boy they hadn’t either (after all, the kid had a criminal record).

-/-/-/-

Two days later, Sojiro was informed that the kid skipped half the school day (and just when he had thought the kid wasn’t so bad). 

He made sure to give him an earful when he got back, reminding him of his place and reinforcing the fact that it was over for him if he tried anything funny.

(He tried to ignore the kid’s flinch when he raised his voice.)

-/-/-/-

When the kid came home, covered head to toe in bruises, he immediately assumed he’d been in a fight of sorts; the boy only listened, head turned down in guilt and eyes wandering, searching for that one place in the room that felt discreet, and Sojiro almost thought the boy had completely ignored him, if not for the slight jolt of his body whenever he said a particularly harsh word.

(He tried to ignore the fact that some bruises drifted under the boy’s shirt, yellow and blue and ugly; and that some of them were painful-looking hickeys, and that he wasn’t quite sure if the kid had gotten into a fight or something much more complex than that).

He was a quiet kid, polite but reserved, and only nodded after Sojiro had finished with his onslaught of words. 

The boy hurried upstairs and Sojiro was worried for a second because he couldn’t hear anything from the boy (despite him knowing from experience that at least half the floorboards up there in the attic were creaky). 

When he checked up on the kid he was passed right out on his crude bed, and Sojiro noticed how tidy the room was, with everything from the placement of his boxes to the angle of the sofa being perfectly spotless and perfectly placed.

The air was still stuffy and dust-ridden, but it was better than before, and Sojiro wondered whether the kid was used to living somewhere so devoid of emotion. 

(He tried to ignore the fact that even the kid’s breathing was quiet, and that sometimes he whimpered in his sleep, as if expecting to be hit for simply resting too loud. 

The kid was a criminal, he told himself, but he wasn’t quite sure he still believed that or not anymore).

-/-/-/-

A few weeks after he’d brought a cat home (yes, a living cat), Sojiro could tell the kid was in a much better mood. 

He could see the bruises fading into nothingness instead of duplicating after a day or two, and found the boy way less jumpy as he had been before.

He was busying himself with a crossword, listening to the white noise of the television, when it suddenly spoke of a calling card, some “Phantom Thieves” and a teacher, an Olympic medalist, admitting to physically and sexually harassing, assaulting and abusing his students.

The teacher was from that kid’s school, Shujin Academy, and he felt his heart both plummet and rise at the same time. 

He realised what those bruises meant now, and judging by the placement of them, the kid must have been dealing with some sexual assault. 

Sojiro didn’t feel good enough for the kid, after not understanding something that had been going on right under his nose for so long, he felt undeniably guilt-trodden. 

But at the same time he felt hope, hope that the kid’d recover, and that he’d be back to his awkward, anxious self in no time.

(Sojiro wondered if that was his true self though, awkward and anxious. Perhaps that wasn’t truly the kid he knew from the start.

He wondered what he’d been going through before moving to Tokyo, and for the first time since the kid had moved in, he started to believe that maybe the boy had been telling the truth from the beginning).

Suddenly, the white noise of the television became less white, and more grey.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m hoping to continue this, focusing on Sojiro and Ren/Akira’s relationship development and how Ren/Akira changes with each palace. 
> 
> This was my first work so I hope you all enjoyed, despite how short it was!!! 
> 
> ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡


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